Anna
I don’t think I’ll ever understand how Elle and I get cut off from the main group of cheerleaders and end up at the rear, alone in the tunnel which leads to the changing room. Maybe it has something to do with the way I constantly search behind me, looking into the court, trying to search for Samson. I want to be with him more than I’ve wanted anything else in my life. My heart is out of control and my head is heavy and no matter how hard I try, my hands won’t stop shaking. He was so close, I think, remembering the knife, the way it cut inches above my head, the way it would’ve cut right into me had Samson not screamed his warning. I remember the feeling when I realized what had happened, when I realized that I’d been close to death. For a second I had accepted that I was going to die. I had come to terms with it before it had even happened. And then the chaos, and the running, and . . . Where is he? I think. Samson! Samson!
Elle tugs at my arm, trying to lead me to the changing room. I look into her face and see that she has no clue what she’s doing. She doesn’t know why she’s dragging me to the changing room. She just is, dragging and dragging. Maybe she thinks, for some bizarre reason, that I’ll be safer in the changing room than out there. But she doesn’t know about Samson, does she? She doesn’t know that the only person who can keep me safe is Samson.
“We have to go,” she says.
“I can’t,” I mumble.
We’re alone in the tunnel, halfway between the court and the room in which the cheerleaders now hide. Their panicked voices filter down the tunnel to us, mixing with the announcer’s voice and the crowd. But the crowd is getting quieter now. Fewer people shout and it seems that everybody has returned to their seats, waiting for the announcer to explain what’s going on.
“What do you mean?” Elle says, tugging more insistently on my arm. “You have to. I don’t know what happened, but—Goddammit, Anna, it’s not safe out there.”
“What, and it’s safe in here?”
Both of us turn toward the voice, the footsteps, but I don’t have to turn to know who it is. She has taken her wig off, but she still wears her dress. In her hand, she holds a pistol. She prances toward us, a sickening smile plastered to her face, until she is standing within a meter of us. I pull away from Elle’s hand and face her as bravely as I can.
“You won’t kill me,” I say, hoping like hell that it’s true. “You wouldn’t have gone through all this effort to get me alone if you just wanted to kill me.”
“Maybe that’s true,” she says, pointing the gun at us and walking around to where Elle stands. “I won’t kill you—yet. First I need to make some things clear to you.”
She smashes the butt of the gun across Elle’s jaw. Elle slams into the wall and slides down it, eyes closing. Then River lurches forward and shoves the barrel of the gun into my belly, looking deep into my eyes. I look back at her and see only madness. Any sorrow I felt for her is extinguished in my own need for survival, in my own desire to get out of this situation alive.
“So,” she says, smiling her deranged smile. “We finally get to meet.”
I look down at Elle, but she’s dead to the world. She’s breathing, and that’s all I can be thankful for. River pushes the barrel of the gun fiercely into my chest, cruelly twisting it and grinning when I wince from the pain. She smiles, an ear-to-ear, psychotic smile, and when I turn from Elle back to River, I know that I’m looking at an insane person.
I remember a dog we brought into the veterinary clinic a few weeks ago. The dog was in good physical condition, unharmed, but it had bitten its owner on the arm and as we tried to apply a muzzle, it twisted and tried to bite at us, too. In the end we had to tranquilize it and put it down. It was a horrible day, the kind of day that makes you question if what you’re doing is what you really want to do. I remember the look in its eyes well: the crazed, ferocious look, the look that said it would bite anyone and anything it could. The look of an animal that had lost some essential part of itself and had reverted to its wolf ancestry. Looking into River’s eyes, I see the same madness, the same desire to do harm.
“You’ve done something truly amazing, Miss Prissy Blondey Anna,” she says, and not once does her grin slip from her face. “Do you know that? Yes, something truly incredible. You see, when I was with Samson, he never opened up to me like it seems he’s opened up to you. He was never close with me, never loving, never affectionate. Oh, we had some good times, don’t get me wrong. There was one time when I woke up and his head was between my legs, licking like mad!”
I growl from deep in my throat, a growl which surprises me. It’s unlike any sound I would normally make.
“Ooh, yes, feisty!” she grins. She takes me by the shoulder and leads me down the tunnel and turns me away from the changing room, shoving me deep into the recesses of the arena until we are completely alone. Above us, I hear the echoing of the crowd, quieter now, less raucous, probably just wondering what the hell is going on.
I know how they feel, I think.
“He was licking like mad,” she says, her voice casual, as though we are two friends having a friendly chat over coffee, as though she doesn’t have a gun buried in my stomach. I look down the tunnel, but I don’t know where we are. Some unused branch of it, somewhere private, somewhere I won’t be found until the gunshot is heard. “That’s what I never understood about Samson, you know.” My only solace is that she’s talking as though she has all the time in the world, perhaps I can hope that her madness has made her overconfident. “He went down between my legs and licked like a champion, he touched me, kissed me, caressed me, and yet after all of that, he could never love me.”
I try to ignore her words, but I can’t fight the images that spew into my head as she talks, images of Samson doing what she describes, going down there and pleasuring her, touching her. I know it was long before we met, long before he even knew who I was, and like she said, he never loved her, but the images are strong and they make me feel sick. I can’t stand to think of Samson with another woman, even now, even when my mind should be on other things.
Isn’t anyone looking for me? Hasn’t Elle woken up? Isn’t there a search for me? Goddamn, can’t Samson get free? I’m going to die here and there’s nothing I can do about it!
I feel the pressure of the gun against my belly and I wonder if I’ll be able to grab it and misdirect the shot before she fires. But I know it’s an absurd thought. I’m a veterinary student, not a ninja. The only thing I can do, I know, is to try and keep her talking for as long as possible. Stretch out her words and distract her until something—though I have no clue what, exactly—stops her from killing me.
“The man with the knife,” I say. I’m shocked by how steady my voice is. I feel oddly calm now I’ve decided on a plan, now I have something to focus my energies on. “You knew he wouldn’t get to me, didn’t you? This was all part of your plan to get me alone.”
“Well—I had many plans,” she says, her eyes lighting up like a child excited to share her most recent school project. “But yes, you’re right, this was one of my plans. I have contingencies. Did Samson tell you what happened to me? I’m sure he did. Well, let’s just say, being kept prisoner and tortured has done little to affect my ability to plan and fight.”
“It’s a good plan, I have to say.” I offer her a smile. A fake smile, but I’m good at fake smiling. I’ve had lots of practice.
For a moment she doesn’t seem to know whether or not to accept the fake smile. She tilts her head at me, biting her lip, studying me the same way I’ve studied animals in the center so many times before. I don’t flinch under her gaze, though the desire to is almost overpowering. I just stare back at her, straight into her eyes, and wait for her to talk.
Then she giggles. At first, it’s a soft giggle, almost innocent, and I’m taken aback by the innocence of it. If I heard a giggle like this in the street I’d turn my head and expect to see a little girl, no cares in the world, laughing her troubles away. I wouldn’t expect to see a deranged wig-wearing killer. The giggle grows darker, a chuckle, and by the end she’s laughing a full-throated man’s laugh. Pinpricks dance up my spine, linger on my neck.
“You’re very kind,” she says. “Yes, very kind indeed.” With a lurch forward, she plants the gun deeper into my belly, something I didn’t think was possible; it smashes into my belly and twists in my gut. “You’re the kindest girl in the world, aren’t you, Anna? Seriously, what sort of name is that, anyway? What sort of pathetic name? Anna? It’s ludicrous!”
“I know,” I wheeze, just trying to draw her out. My world has honed down to one impulse now: survive. And I know I can’t fight her. Even if there was some way for me to grab the gun, wrench it form her grip, I wouldn’t be able to fight her. She’s had training. Her arms are corded with muscle and her face is stern-set, the face of somebody used to doing immense harm. No, there’s nothing I can do when it comes to a physical battle. I’ll have to fight a word battle and hope—pray—that Samson is somewhere close by, somewhere he can get to me. I don’t like to think of myself as a damsel, I never have, but like it or not, I’m in a situation where I need to be saved. “It is silly. I’ve often said so.”
Dad, River, Samson . . . all of it seems suddenly heavy on my shoulders. The pain in my belly wants me to keel over and the weight of the events dig between my shoulder blades, doing the same. It’s a struggle to stand up straight, and as I do I feel as though I’m shrugging off Dad’s sickening revelation and the sight of Samson being dragged away in the crowd and her, this woman, the way she looks at me like I’m a mass of flesh soon to be dead.
“Good,” she sighs. “This is so foolish. All of it. My brother had to die for you. What sense does that make? He was never a bad man, you know. Never as bad as you no doubt made out. No, no, Eric was a good man, a solid man. I never once saw him hit a woman. I never once saw him even be aggressive toward a woman. And then, what, you come along and he suddenly turns into a monster? Somehow, I doubt that. I doubt that he turned into a beast at the drop of a hat. No, no, no.”
I make to speak, mind reeling. Eric, her brother? Eric, the monster who beat me, her brother? Pieces of the puzzle which before seemed disconnected come together. It wasn’t just about the money for River. Or Samson. Or getting her revenge. Eric was her brother. It was about me. All of this time, all of this hunting and running, it was about me. Bile rises in my throat. There’s nothing I can do about it. I vomit violently, dribbling down my chin, dripping onto the concrete floor.
River steps back and for a second the gun sways unsteadily in her grip. I don’t plan it. I don’t imagine that the gun will sway side to side, that this steady, solid woman will momentarily be tipped off her balance. But when it happens, my body reacts before I do. I throw myself forward, arms outstretched, and grab her wrist. She yelps and tries to jostle me away, waving from side to side, the whole force of her muscular body turned against me.
I scream, my voice partially muffled from the vomit.
River wrenches me from left to right, left to right, and I feel like I’m a ragdoll. My body is thrown here and there as though I am weightless, as though River is a giant who can pick me up and place me wherever she likes.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
The whole time I yank at her, her grip never loosens on the gun, not once. She holds it solidly, her fingers a clamp tightened around it. She doesn’t lose her cool. Part of me hopes that she fires the gun accidently, at the wall or the floor, and the bang brings hordes of guards and fans down upon us. Or at the very least it will wake Elle and she’ll go for somebody. But she’s in control, as in control as Samson is on a job. She doesn’t fire the gun and soon the pain in my belly and the fire in my throat from the vomit tire me. River shows zero sign of tiredness. I get the sense that she could do this all day if it was necessary.
My grip lightens on her wrist for a half-second—and that’s all she needs.
She smacks me across the face with the gun, blood pouring from my mouth and dripping down my chin.
I fall back, stumble, and after what feels like minutes of rolling I’m on my back on the concrete, staring up at her.
Her brother, I think, wondering. Her brother.
And then, lying there and looking up at the woman who’s about to kill me, I remember the crazy look Eric would get.
Looking up at River, I think, it’s the same madness in her eyes, the same feral madness, the same anger. Yes, of course they’re related. Of course they are. Goddammit, I should’ve known the first moment I saw her!
She kneels down beside me and presses the barrel of the gun against the side of my head. The metal is cool and sends chill down my body. Her breathing quickens, and I know why without having to think about it. It is the quickening of breathing that comes to a predator moments before they kill their prey. I hear a tiny sound, almost too tiny to detect. I can’t turn and check to see if I’m right, but I know it’s her fingernail stroking the trigger, a minute nail-on-metal, a tsk-tsk that will soon be my death knell.
“He was never a bad man,” she sighs. “When we were children, we lived near a lake. One summer, I got it into my head that I wanted to swim out farther than any six-year-old should even think about. Don’t ask me why. Why does a little girl do anything?” Her tone is whimsical. She could be a kind woman sitting on a porch discussing her past with an eager child listening. A whimsical tone which has no business coming from the lips of such a deranged person. “I got it into my head, and I did it. I didn’t even change out of my clothes, just jumped right in and swam and swam and swam. And, well, you can guess what happened. I’d hardly been swimming for two minutes when I started to thrash around in the water, arms and legs so tired I was sure, even at an age where death was vague to me, that I was going to die. But Eric saved me, jumped right in and swam to me and saved me from myself. You see, Anna. He was a good man.”
She strokes my face with her free hand. Her palm is clammy, sticky against my skin, and then she sighs heavily.
“But no one will save you,” she says.